a study of politeness strategies used by erin gruwell …

IJHS, e-ISSN 2597-4718, p-ISSN 2597-470X, Vol. 4, No. 2, March 2021, pp. 221-235

International Journal of Humanity Studies

http://e-journal.usd.ac.id/index.php/IJHS

Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

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A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES USED BY ERIN GRUWELL

IN FREEDOM WRITERS MOVIE

Sharly Prisca Maria Leihitu and Veronica Triprihatmini

English Language Education Study Program

Universitas Sanata Dharma

[email protected] and [email protected]

DOI: 10.24071/ijhs.v4i2.3239

received 28 December 2020; accepted 29 March 2021

Abstract

This study aims to identify and describe the four politeness strategies and the

factors which are proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson as seen

in an American movie entitled Freedom Writers. It is qualitative research since

the focus is on analysing the utterances of the main character. The data is taken

from the movie script. There are two research questions discussed in this study:

(1) what are politeness strategies used by Erin Gruwell in the Freedom Writers

movie? And (2) what factors influencing the politeness strategies? The findings

show that Erin Gruwell applied the four politeness strategies, which are bald-on

record, off-record, negative and positive politeness. However, the dominant

strategy used by Erin is positive politeness, where Erin wants to get close and

satisfy the hearer’s face. Related to the factors influencing the politeness

strategies, the finding shows that there are two factors that affect Erin in choosing

the politeness strategies: the payoffs and the sociological variables. In addition,

sociological variables have three sub things: social distance, relative power and

rank of imposition.

Keywords: politeness, politeness strategy, Freedom Writers, language

Introduction

Communication plays an important role in human beings' lives. As human

beings, we need to interact, socialize and exchange ideas with each other. In

communication, language is an important instrument that is used by people in

delivering messages. Through language, people not only are able to deliver the

message, but they can also express feelings, criticise a problem, receive a

message, or even ask people to do something.

One of the issues in communication is politeness. According to Brown and

Levinson (1987), the relevant concept of politeness is the concept of face. Being

polite means respecting and maintaining other’s faces. Face is categorised into

two, which are positive face and negative face. Positive face is defined by Brown

and Levinson as the self-image that he or she wants to be desirable, to be

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IJHS, e-ISSN 9999-2345, p-ISSN 1234-5678, Vol. 4, No. 2, March 2021, pp. 221-235

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appreciated, and to be liked by others. Meanwhile, a negative face is the self-

image that wants to be free, independent, and not to be imposed by other people.

Unconsciously, some people tend to threaten other’s face through their

speech acts. We might see that many problems in such places are caused by our

language choices, especially in the education field. As a teacher, or even students,

we need to be more aware of language politeness in order to minimize this

phenomenon which is still happening.

By considering the latest phenomenon above, this study analyses the four

politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson found in an American

movie entitled Freedom Writers. There are two research questions discussed in

this study: (1) what are politeness strategies used by Erin Gruwell in the Freedom

Writers movie? And (2) what factors influencing the politeness strategies?.

Review of Related Studies and Theories

There are several studies conducted on politeness strategies applying Brown

and Levinson theory of politeness strategies.

The first study was written by Liu Peng, Fang Xie, and Lingling Cai (2014)

entitled A Case Study of College Teacher's Politeness Strategy in EFL Classroom.

This study is a qualitative research since the focus is analysing teacher’s language

in the classroom by using teaching learning recording.

The second study was conducted by Mifta Hasmi (2013) entitled A

Pragmatic Analysis of Politeness Strategies Reflected in Nanny Mcphee Movie.

The focus of this study was the language politeness of the main character in the

Nanny Mcphee. Hasmi (2013), and it applied descriptive qualitative approach.

The third study was done by Widiadnya, I., Seken, K., and Santosa, M.

(2018) entitled The Implications of Politeness Strategies among Teachers and

Students in the Classroom. The data of this study was taken from tenth grade EFL

teacher and some students of SMK Nusa Dua Bali. The data were collected

through observations and interview. Brown and Levinson theory of politeness is

also applied by the researcher in analysing the data.

The fourth study was written by Ardi, H., Nababan, M., Djatmika, and

Santosa, R. Entitled Politeness Strategy in Indonesian Translation: Has it already

changed? This study is aimed at comparing politeness strategies used in directive

act in the novel Deception Point written by Dan Brown (2001) and its two

translation versions released in 2006 and 2015. This study uses four different

theories as a reference in data analysis, which are speech acts theory proposed by

Searle (1976), the concept of politeness related to face-saving by Brown and

Levinson (1987), theory of translation techniques proposed by Molina & Albir

(2002), the impact translation techniques toward the quality of translation used

Nababan, Nuraeni, & Sumardiono (2012).

The fifth study was written by Almoaily, M. (2018) entitled Greetings as a

Politeness Strategy in EFL Distance Learning Students' Official Emails. The study

analysed the EFL online students’ politeness strategy in greeting their supervisors

through email. The researcher applied face theory from Goffman and politeness

theory from Brown and Levinson.

The sixth study was written by Marpaung, T. (2019) entitled Politeness

Strategy among Teachers and Students in EFL Classroom. This study is a

qualitative research since its purposed to find out the types of politeness strategy


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by using Brown & Levinson theory (1987) and to find out the most dominant of

politeness strategy of English teacher and grade eight students in classroom

conversation.

Speech Acts

Language does not only produce sounds, words, or utterances. However, it

carries action behind them all, namely speech acts. Speech acts is a

sociolinguistics field and part of pragmatics study. According to Searle (1969)

speech act is the production or issuance of a sentence token under certain

conditions. It means that the uttering words or sentences are produced by the

speaker based on the condition. There are three kinds of meaning in producing

utterance; locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary (Austin, 1962).

Locutionary

The speaker produces an utterance as a particular linguistic expression with

a particular structure and literal meaning (Austin, 1962) which means that what

the speaker said to the hearer is the authentic meaning of the utterance without

any reference. For instance, someone enters a room and finds that the room is not

comfortable because of the temperature, and suddenly says “the room is superhot”

this statement indicates that the temperature in that room is humid and hot.

Illocutionary

The illocutionary act is the social function that the utterance has, in which

illocutionary means the act of doing something. For instance, when somebody

asks “do you have some water?” after exercising, the illocutionary act is a request:

“please give me some water.”

In Searle taxonomy, there are five points of his taxonomy. These five points

represent an important attempt to classify actions that people can perform their

utterances. The first is directives, which is an attempt to make the hearer perform

some future actions, such as requesting, ordering, and questioning. The second is

assertives, an attempt to represent an actual state of affairs, such as asserting,

concluding, informing, predicting, and reporting. The third is commissives,

committing the speaker to a future course of action, such as warning, promising,

threatening, and guaranteeing. The fourth is declaratives, an attempt to bring a

change in some institutional state of affairs, such as declaring war and performing

a marriage. The fifth is expressive, expressing a psychological state, such as

thanking, complaining, greeting, and apologizing.

Perlocutionary

Perlocutionary is the result or effect that is produced by the utterance in that

given text. It brings the consequence or effect of uttering sentences from the

speaker to the hearer. The effect of the utterance can make someone do what the

speaker has said. According to Searle, the effects can be enlightenment, inspiring,

convincing, and persuading.

Face

According to P. Brown and S. C. Levinson (1978), face is defined as a basic

‘want’ of individuals. Face is something that is emotionally invested, lost,

maintained, or enhanced and must be included in interaction. Face is categorised

into two aspects, which are negative and positive faces. Based on Brown and

Levinson in Politeness book “negative face is the basic claim to territories,


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personal preserves, rights to non-distractions, for example: to freedom of action

and freedom from imposition.” Positive face is the wants of someone which

should be desirable by other people or at least some others, for example: life,

health, honour, a positive self-image.

Face Threatening Acts

Face threatening act or FTA is the act of being impolite and can have risk to

threaten either positive or negative faces. Very often we threaten other’s faces

with our expressions and non-verbal communication, such as requesting, offering,

giving suggestions, advising, or even staring at someone with no reason.

Politeness Strategy

In order to save hearer’s face of doing FTA in communication, politeness

strategy is developed by Brown and Levinson in 1978. Politeness strategy is a

strategy that is used to prevent a violation of the hearer’s face. Brown and

Levinson divided human politeness behaviour into four strategies namely

Negative Politeness Strategy, Positive Politeness Strategy, Bald On-Record

Strategy, Off-Record Strategy.

Negative politeness strategy appears when people show respect of deference,

avoiding imposing or offending, acknowledging their “rights”. This means the

speaker is trying to avoid offense and maintaining the distance between them and

giving them an option to choose. Brown and Levinson (1987) propose the

strategies to indicate negative politeness strategy as being conventionally indirect,

questioning and hedging, being pessimistic, minimizing the imposition, giving

difference, apologizing, impersonalizing speaker and hearer, stating the FTA as a

general rule, nominalizing and going on record as incurring a debt, or as not

indebting hearer.

Positive politeness strategy refers to showing emphatic with someone,

commiserating with one another about common problems, admiring the other’s

taste in clothes by commenting approvingly, and friendly joking. According to

Brown and Levinson (1987), there are 15 strategies to show positive politeness

strategy, namely noticing and attending hearer, exaggerating, intensifying interest

to hearer, using in-group identity markers, seeking agreements, avoiding

disagreement, presupposing/raising/asserting common ground, joking, asserting or

presupposing speaker’s knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants, offering

and promising, being optimistic, including both speaker and hearer in the activity,

giving (or asking) reasons, assuming or asserting reciprocity, and giving gifts to

hearer in the forms of goods, sympathy, understanding or cooperation.

Findings and Discussion

Politeness Strategies Used by Erin in Freedom Writers Movie

In the Freedom Writers movie, the four politeness strategies are used by Erin

Gruwell. She considers hearer’s public face as the important aspect to implement

her politeness strategies in communication. The payoffs or result and sociological

variables affect Erin’s politeness strategy, since those always appeared in the

utterances.


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Figure 1. Politeness strategies used by Erin Gruwell

Positive politeness

Positive politeness strategy is the dominant strategy found in Erin Gruwell’s

utterances. According to the result, there are 105 utterances that are categorised as

positive politeness strategy. This strategy is applied by speaker to protect her/his

self-positive face, which includes the awareness of hearer’s wants and needs, the

optimism, promising, complementing, and the use of personal pronoun such a

“we” or “us” to imply that either speaker or hearer have the same value or the

same in group. Brown and Levinson state some advantages of positive politeness

strategy: giving compliment; satisfying hearer’s positive face; minimizing the

Face Threatening Acts (FTA); and minimizing the intention of being debt such as

requests and offers.

There are several situations in which, positive politeness strategy is applied

by Erin Gruwell in the movie, one of them can be seen where Eva comes to the

classroom and talks to Erin. In this case, Eva has problem with her family and

cannot go home for a while. Then, she asks Erin’s permission whether she can

stay in or not. Erin’s response below is categorised as positive politeness strategy

because it has saved Eva’s want in public. This utterance also belongs to

illocutionary act, which shows an assertives type to inform that Erin let Eva to

stay.

Setting : room 203

Participants : Eva and Erin

Situation : Eva asked Erin’s permission to stay late with her to do her work

in the room.

Time : 01:34:42

Eva : See, my aunt lives even further away, so I was just wondering if I

could, like, stay here late with you, so I can get my homework

done, 'cause it's late by the time I get home.

Erin : You can stay as late as you want. And I can even drive you to

your aunt's, if it gets too late.


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The situation above, where Eva requests something to Erin, indicates that

Eva is showing her positive face to Erin. Here, Eva’s wants or needs should be

accepted by the hearer, if not, her positive face will threaten.

Erin responds “you can stay as late as you want. And I can even drive you to

your aunt's, if it gets too late.” This responds has totally saved Eva's positive face.

Look at the first statement, “you can stay as late as you want.” It indicates that

Erin accepts Eva’s request to stay in the classroom and she also gives Eva a

freedom to stay for how long. This utterance also belongs to illocutionary act,

which shows an assertive type to inform that Erin let Eva to stay. In the second

statement, “and I can even drive you to your aunt’s, if it gets too late.” Erin

attempts to get closer to Eva by offering something as if both of them are a close

friend who will be there if the other needs help. Erin puts aside the distance

between them.

Negative politeness

Negative politeness strategy is in the second place after positive politeness.

The result shows that there are 31 utterances which belongs to negative politeness.

According to Brown and Levinson (1987), negative politeness strategy is oriented

towards hearer’s negative face and the basic want to maintain distance and self-

determination. Negative politeness strategy has some characteristics which

contrast with the previous strategy that have been explained above. Specifically,

negative politeness is signalled by being self-effacement, being formality and

restraint, being pessimistic, and being indirect. Moreover, the payoffs of negative

politeness strategy are satisfy hearer’s negative face by giving respect and

deference to hearer, avoiding incurring, maintaining the social distance and

avoiding the threat.

The example of negative politeness application strategy can be seen in the

following dialogue, where Erin asked for discount to the bookkeeper. Erin

attempts to be polite when asking for a discount to someone who she did not

know before. The use of words “excuse me” and “could” are considered as polite

way in delievering her intention. Moreover, the use of hedging “sort of” also

indicates that Erin attempts to maintain hearer’s negative face by reducing the

strength of her utterance of asking for discount. The strategy is suitable to be used

when a speaker does not really know a hearer and wants to be seen polite.

Furthermore, Erin’s utterance shows an illocutionary act, in which she is

requesting a discount to a shopkeeper.

Setting : in a book store

Participants : book keeper and Erin

Situation : Erin was in bookstore and looking for a book for the students

Time : 00:55:55

Erin : Excuse me, if I wanted to order any books in bulk, could I get

some sort of a discount?

From her words above “Excuse me, if I wanted to order any books in bulk,

could I get some sort of a discount?” Erin attempts to be polite when asking for a

discount to someone who she did not know before. The use of words “excuse me”


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and “could” are considered as polite way in delivering her intention. Moreover,

the use of hedging “sort of” also indicates that Erin attempts to maintain hearer’s

negative face by reducing the strength of her utterance of asking for discount. The

strategy is suitable to be used when a speaker does not really know a hearer and

wants to be seen polite. Furthermore, Erin’s utterance shows an illocutionary act,

in which she is requesting a discount to a shopkeeper.

Bald on Record

On-record strategy is a direct, clear and unambiguous expression. The

communication between speaker and hearer is straightforward and not rambling.

In this strategy, the speaker does not really pay attention to the hearer's face, in

which it might cause the hearer to get some shock. On-record strategy can be used

in urgent situation.

On-record strategy is in the third position after negative politeness. It has 21

points, according to the result. Erin Gruwell applies this strategy in some

situations, one of them is in the classroom, the example can be seen in the

following explanation, in which Erin is about the first time teaching in room 203,

and is surprised that her students are impolite and rude in the classroom. Some

inappropriate words are heard in the conversation between Erin and her students.

The use of on-record strategy by Erin Gruwell conceives some payoffs or the

advantages, which are enlisting pressure against the hearer, giving clarity,

avoiding to be seen as manipulator and misunderstanding. The conversation can

be seen in the following dialogue.

Setting : room 203

Participants : Andre, Marcus, Eva, Jamal

Situation : Erin was explaining the materials for today

Time : 00:20:45

Andre : Think we don’t know Tupac?

Marcus : White girl gonna teach us about rap.

Erin : No, it’s not that. See, what I was trying to do...

Eva : You have no idea. What you’re doing up there, do you?

You ever been a teacher before?

Jamal : And teacher gets nailed, y’all!

Erin : All right, Jamal, enough. Jamal! That’s enough! You know what?

I want you to move to this front seat right here now.

Jamal : What?

Erin : Come on. I am sick of these antics in my classroom.

Erin Gruwell as the first time being a teacher in Wilson High School does

not know her students’ character and condition at that time. She is shock when her

expectation about being a teacher is not going well. Although, there are still some

students who responds in good manners, but most students are aggressive,

sensitive, rude and impolite.

In room 203, Erin starts to teach her students about poetry and rhyme. She

asks the students whether they know Tupac Shakur or not, a well-known rapper

and actor in America. Tupac Shakur is chosen because his song lyrics and poetry


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are so cool and sophisticated. Unexpectedly, Erin’s question is answered

impolitely by some students.

In the dialogue 1, after getting such a bad response from her students, Erin

responds “All right, Jamal, enough. Jamal! That’s enough! You know what? I

want you to move to this front seat right now.” This utterance shows that Erin

does not like Jamal’s action who has underestimated a teacher through his actions

in the classroom. Bald on-record strategy can be seen in Erin’s response, in which

her utterance shows three hints of doing on-record strategy. She mentions his

nickname (Jamal), she uses directives category of illocutionary speech act (I want

you to move to this front seat), and she specifies the time (right now). Moreover,

she adds “come on. I’m sick of these antics in my classroom.” In the following

expression, it indicates Erin’s positive face has been threatened by the students’

utterances.

Off Record

In contrast with on-record, off-record strategy is an indirect way to say

something. Here, a speaker lets the hearer decide what the speaker means, and the

hearer should interpret by himself. Some linguistic realizations in off-record are

used, such as metaphor and irony, rhetorical questions, understatement, and all

kinds of hints that a speaker wants to communicate. Several advantages of off-

record strategy are avoiding responsibility which potentially damages the hearer’s

face, being tactful, and testing hearer’s feelings towards him. Based on the result,

off-record is the lowest strategy found in the movie. The total utterances are 12.

The example of off-record application can be seen in the dialogue 10, where

Erin and Scott are talking about the latest discussion with her father in a

restaurant, in which, what her father did actually made them offended. Here, Erin

applies off record strategy by giving association clues to Scott. She presupposes

her father with an actor in a book To Kill A Mocking Bird, Atticus Finch, a well-

known lawyer who was competent in solving a problem by questioning witnesses.

An illocutionary act is applied in Erin’s actions, where she complains to Scott

about her father.

Setting : in the bedroom

Participants : Scott and Erin

Situation : They were talking while brushing teeth.

Time : 00:18:55

Erin : What’s happened to him? He was like Atticus Finch to me when I

was growing up.

In the utterance above, Erin applies off record strategy by giving association

clues to Scott. She presupposes her father with an actor in a book To Kill A

Mocking Bird, Atticus Finch, a well-known lawyer who was competent in solving

a problem by questioning witnesses. An illocutionary act is applied in Erin’s

actions, where she complains to Scott about her father.


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The Factors Affecting Politeness Strategies by Erin Gruwell as The Main

Character in Freedom Writers Movie

This part defines some factors influencing the main character’s politeness

strategies in the movie. There are two factors affecting the character’s politeness

strategies, namely payoffs and sociological variables.

The Payoffs

According to Brown and Levinson, payoffs are the advantage of doing the

four strategies. Since there are four politeness strategies, Brown and Levinson

stated four different payoffs of each strategy based on their conditions. The four

different payoffs reflected in Erin Gruwell’s statements are presented as follows.

On-record Payoffs

The use of on-record strategy by a speaker conceives some payoffs or the

advantages, which are enlisting pressure against the hearer, giving clarity,

avoiding to be seen as manipulator and misunderstanding. The example of on-

record payoffs can be seen in the following dialogue.

Dialogue 10

Erin : All right, Jamal, enough. Jamal! That’s enough! You know what? I want

you to move to this front seat right here now.

Jamal : What?

Erin : I’m sick of these antics in my classroom.

Erin was about to start the class by asking them about song lyrics which

were written by Tupac Shakur who was an American actor and rapper. However,

the students responded to Erin impolitely. Then, Erin used on-record strategy in

this conversation by saying “I’m sick of these antics in my classroom” which

indicates that Erin’s face has threatened by the students, that is why Erin’s effort

to protect the students’ face was less, and preferred to be clear and direct in

expressing her speech.

The next example of on-record payoff can be seen in the dialogue 11, where

Erin and Scott were arguing Erin’s profession as a teacher. Scott actually did not

feel comfortable with what Erin was doing for her students because she has been

very busy taking care of the students.

Dialogue 11

Scott : They're not even your kids!

Erin : Why do I have to be asked? Scott...

I finally realized what I'm supposed to be doing and I love it.

On-record strategy was used by both of them in the dialogue above. Erin’s

response “I finally realized what I’m supposed to be doing and I love it” is the

very clear, honest and unambiguous statement that Erin said to Scott as the reason

why she was so busy just for the students.

Another example of on-record strategy payoff is listed in the following

dialogue. The circumstance is Erin was trying to explain why she could not

continue teaching them in senior year. But then, a student named Marcus replied


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to her, and it surprised Erin a little bit. The response from her student made her

use an on-record strategy which can be seen as follows.

Dialogue 12

Erin : I want you all to know that Dr. Cohn and I tried very hard. But it's

been decided we can't continue with each other junior year.

All students : What? What?

Erin : You... Wait. Wait. Guys. Everyone.

Marcus : No! That don't fly, Ma!

Erin : Look, first of all, I'm not anyone's mother in here, okay?

She emphasizes “look, first of all. I’m not anyone’s mother in here, okay?”

to make the students understand that Erin was not their mother who would be

together and help them forever. They could do something even with or without

her.

Positive Politeness Payoffs

According to Brown and Levinson theory of factors influencing the choice

of strategies, there are several advantages of positive politeness strategy. The

payoffs are giving compliment, satisfying hearer’s positive face, minimizing the

Face Threatening Acts (FTA) and minimizing the intention of being debt such as

requests and offers. The following dialogue is the example of positive politeness

payoffs.

Dialogue 13

Erin : I want you to take one of these glasses of sparkling cider, and I want each

of you to make a toast. We're each gonna make a toast for change.

The students were shocked by Erin’s plan today. She prepared some glasses

and bags to make a deal together. A toast for change indicates that nobody will

never disturb them from now on and every voice that stops them should be

disappeared. The he signal “we’re” Indicates that Erin avoided FTA such as

requesting and offering by including hearer and speaker equally as participants.

Another example of positive politeness strategy payoff can be seen in the

scene, where a student asked to read his diary in front of the class, and Erin

pleased him by saying “that’d be great.”

Dialogue 14

Student A : Ms. G? Can I read something from my diary?

Erin : That'd be great.

“That’d be great” is the positive politeness strategy which indicates that Erin was

trying to protect that student’s positive face. She satisfied the student by agreeing

his request to Erin.

Negative Politeness Payoffs

Negative politeness strategy payoffs aims to satisfy hearer’s negative face

by giving respect and deference to hearer, avoiding incurring, maintaining the


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social distance and avoiding the threat. The dialogue 15 below is the example of

negative politeness strategy payoff that the main character did in the movie.

Dialogue 15

Ms. Campbell : Apparently you're taking your students on a trip?

Erin : Yes, but it's over the weekend, so it won't affect any test

schedules. I know how busy you are. And since I'm paying for it

myself, I didn't want to bother you.

The conversation started when Ms. Campbell asked Erin about a trip that

Erin had planned with the students. Actually, Erin did not tell her about that plan

because she did not want to disturb Ms. Campbell. However, it threatened Ms.

Campbell's negative face as a principal in the school. She was mad at Erin and left

her before Erin finished her words. Here, Erin showed her effort to save Ms.

Campbell’s face by applying a negative politeness strategy. The utterance “I know

how busy you are. And since I’m paying for it myself, I didn’t want to bother

you.” Shows the reason why Erin used negative politeness strategy, in which the

utterance indicates that Erin was showing her respect to Ms. Campbell by not

disturbing her freedom as a principal.

Another example of positive politeness payoff is listed in the dialogue 16,

where Erin just came home late because she should drive the students’ home. The

circumstance can be seen in the following dialogue.

Dialogue 16

Erin : Sorry, it got late. I drove the kids home. I didn't want them taking buses.

The underlined utterance above shows that Erin was giving an apology to

her husband who has been waiting for her. She realized that it was already late at

night and she just came home. Here, she was trying to minimize the potential face

loss of her husband by apologizing. She also showed her respect to Scott because

he was her husband.

Off-record Payoffs

Several advantages of off-record strategy are avoiding responsibility which

potentially damages the hearer’s face, being tactful, and testing hearer’s feelings

towards him. The dialogue 19 above is the example of off-record strategy payoffs.

Dialogue 17

Her dad : I thought you were an architect.

Erin : He is. He's just taking a break.

Scott : And the money's good for now.

Her dad : How much are you making? $27,000 before taxes?

Erin : If you know, why are you asking?

The example of off-record payoff can be seen in the conversation above,

where Erin, Scott, and her dad were having dinner in a restaurant. Her dad started

the conversation by asking Scott about his job. Since Erin applied to be a teacher,


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her dad got suspicious whether Scott could earn money by himself or not. He

interrogated Scott with some questions, who made Erin use negative politeness

strategy to respond to her father “if you know, why are you asking?” which

indicates that she used a rhetorical question to emphasize some points being

discussed and have an obvious answer. Here, Erin let her father interpret by

himself what actually the meaning of her words were. The use of this strategy

means that Erin was avoiding responsibility for FTA interpretation.

The Sociological Variables

According to Brown and Levinson, besides payoff, another factor of

choosing politeness strategy is influenced by sociological variables. Those

variables are social distance, relative power and ranking of imposition. The

detailed explanation will be served in the following discussion.

Social Distance

According to Brown and Levinson, social distance is the common factor

influencing a speaker in choosing their politeness strategy. Commonly, social

distance is determined by three things, which are age, gender and intimacy. If the

social distance between speaker and hearer is close, the speaker can apply on-

record and positive politeness strategies in their conversation. However, if the

closeness and distance between participants is less, then, the speaker may use

negative politeness or off-record strategies in a conversation.

In this study, social distance always appears in the data, which means it is a

factor influencing the speaker to choose the politeness strategies in his or her

speech.

Dialogue 18

Eva : See, my aunt lives even further away, so I was just wondering if I could,

like, stay here late with you, so I can get my homework done, 'cause it's

late by the time I get home.

Erin : You can stay as late as you want. And I can even drive you to your aunt's,

if it gets too late.

Eva : Ms. G, let's not get nuts.

The relationship between Erin and Eva is a teacher and student. However, in

the conversation above, the way they both speak as if they are close friends. Erin

wanted to satisfy Eva positive face by letting her to stay as late as she wanted,

also, by giving an offer to drive Eva to her aunt’s home. Here, the use of positive

politeness strategy is applied because the distance between them is less.

Relative Power

The relative power is also a factor affecting speakers in delivering their

politeness strategy. Here, a speaker who has greater power than others, they can

use either on-record or positive politeness strategies in their speech. On the other

hand, a speaker who has low power in certain situation, they can use negative

politeness or off-record strategies. The relative power example can be seen in the

following illustrated.


233

Dialogue 19

Steve : Oh, no. No, no, no. Erin? Get back in the car.

Erin : Dad, he lives right here.

Steve : I'll get him. Get back in the car and lock your door. What's his name?

Erin : Andre Bryant.

Steve Gruwell is the father of Erin. As a father, Steve has higher power than

Erin. By asking her “Get back in the car” “I’ll get him. Get back in the car and

lock your door.” Erin could not ignore him. Her utterance “dad, he lives right

here.” does not be listened by her father, in which it indicates that Erin has less

power to rule her father. Erin realizes that if she ignores her father, she will do the

FTA which is impolite as daughter to father.

Rank of Imposition

Rank of imposition is determined by the obscurity surrounding a speaker

and hearer. Positive politeness or on-record strategies can be applied when the

rank of imposition is less. On the other hand, a speaker can use negative

politeness or off-record strategies when the rank of imposition is high in order to

avoid face threatening acts.

Dialogue 20

Scott : I feel like we haven’t talked about anything, other than your job, in like

forever.

Erin : I’m sorry

In the conversation, Scott expressed what he felt to Erin. By saying “I feel

like we haven’t talked about anything, other than your job” indicates that Scott is

giving a clue to Erin which led Erin to interpret what Scott wants. Here, the rank

of imposition is high because Erin did not realize that she has ignored Scott by

talking her job only. Erin gives her regret to Scott for her mistake she made by

applying negative politeness strategy “I’m sorry.”

Conclusion

Based on the findings, the first research question was answered by

categorising the utterances of the main character using Brown and Levinson

theory of politeness, and the study found that the four strategies (bald-on record,

off-record, positive, and negative politeness strategy) are implemented by Erin in

the movie. Positive politeness strategy is the most dominant strategy since the

relationship between the main character and other characters is close. Meanwhile,

in the second research question, the study found that there are two factors that

affected Erin in using the politeness strategies in the movie. Those two factors are

the payoffs and the sociological variables namely social distance, relative power

and rank of imposition. Payoffs refers to the advantage or result of each politeness

strategy. The payoffs in positive politeness strategy means, a speaker wants to be

close to hearer, satisfy hearer’s face, and minimize acts that can threaten hearer’s

face. For bald-on record, a speaker wants to be direct, clear and unambiguous in

uttering speech. Meanwhile, the payoffs in negative politeness strategy, a speaker

satisfies hearer’s freedom of not to be imposition and respects hearer’s negative


234

face. The advantage of doing off-record politeness strategy, a speaker can avoid

responsibility in damaging hearer’s face and test hearer whether he or she cares to

the speaker or not. The study can add more knowledge related to some values in

politeness either for English teachers or students who deal with language. Dealing

with language does not stop in learning the rules or enriching vocabulary, yet,

politeness is an important part of learning a language. Therefore, through the

study, all English teachers and students are expected to have more knowledge by

reading and understanding the study which contains politeness, its strategies and

factors influencing the choice of politeness strategy.

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